Dan Higgins stands in front of his photo collection on display at the North End Studio A from his book, 'Sister Cities: Side by Side.' / John Herrick

Written by

John Herrick

Free Press Correspondent

Dan Higgins is the program coordinator for Burlington’s Sister City program with Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. Higgins uses photography to connect the two communities.

Bilwi, the urban center of Puerto Cabezas, parallels Burlington in many ways. For example, Lake Champlain’s bay mirrors the Atlantic coastline, and the kids playing in City Hall Park resemble those in the Plaza Central.

The program with Puerto Cabezas began in 1984 when the Burlington City Council adopted Bilwi as a sister city in protest to the federal government’s support for the Contra insurgency in Nicaragua.

Higgins’ book states that he wanted to document an image of Nicaragua absent of the war that was being reported by the media, so he photographed everyday life instead.

“My passion has been visual culture,” he said.

He wanted to enter the social life of the region, as he had in his Winooski-based project, “Vacancy, Art & Transformation: Winooski 1969-2005.” He photographed life in the churches, the shops, the cafes, the bars, and the homes.

Higgins parallels the two sister cities with photographs in his project, “Sister Cities: Side by Side.” In this book, he forces the reader to compare the two communities with two page spreads that connect the photographs from each location.

“It’s less about the photograph per se than the relationship of the photographs,” he said. “You get to make people see both pictures.”

In 1986, the only instrument to communicate with Burlington was a short-wave radio in Bilwi’s local church. Now the program uses various forms of media to connect the two communities.

For example, Higgins made a video of a bisected screen. Gordon Stone, a Vermont-based bluegrass guitarist plays from Burlington on one screen while Remigio Hodgson sings and plays acoustic guitar from Bilwi on another.

He said that such a project is intended to get people working together through the use of a visual medium, such as video. This includes making music together.

Higgins also uses the camera as a key to enter into the life of the Bilwi community. When he “makes” a photograph, he tries to enter the world of his subjects.

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“I use photography to express issues that are important to me and connect to situations that I otherwise wouldn’t have access to,” he said. “The emphasis for me is more on making a photograph. It is to connect to social situations.”

In 2000, Higgins traveled to Bilwi to set up a video program that would enhance the presence of visual media in the region because the cable television was inadequate. He said that the only open channel seemed to play one movie, Ghost.

He brought down an editing deck and five video cameras to create a workshop for members of the community to create their own documentation of the region.

“’We are not journalists. I don’t want you documenting the extraordinary,’” he told his students. “’I want you to document the area where you live.’”

In order to better understand his subjects, he shows them their photograph and asks them to provide feedback. He said that he learns more about them from this feedback.

“One of the things that’s critical for me is that I show the picture to the people,” he said. “I can learn more about people telling me what they want to see in it.”

He developed this technique through his experience in archeology. When he was surveying sites as an anthropologist, he would go to bars and show the residence an aerial image of their town. The people would then be eager to point out what they knew about it.

“That picture would draw people to it. It was like a magnet,” he said. “It’s very hard for people to see it and not tell you what the see in it”

He used this same technique in photography to learn more about the photograph by showing it to his subjects and listening to their feedback.

Higgins wants to get schools involved with the program to continue to connect the two communities.